Tonight’s selection is this 1972 documentary about Boston’s North End, titled Little Italy. I’ve gotten to know the neighborhood a bit over the years living in Providence. But what I
In today’s podcast, I interview Andrew Sandoval-Strausz from Penn State University about his 2019 book Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City. This is an absolutely fascin
Amen to this: Today, the coronavirus pandemic, in all its horror, opens the prospect of sweeping urban change. Cities suddenly see the possibility of correcting their greatest mistake of the 20th cent
One thing about living through a pandemic is that it’s a good time to discuss other pandemics. One of the biggest public health issues in the 19th century was cholera, with three mass epidemics:
In studying urban history, one of the lessons of the disaster of public housing in the mid-twentieth century is that the big housing projects never asked or cared about participation from the people w
This is the grave of James Rouse. Born in 1914 in Easton, Maryland, Rouse grew up in a well-off family, though when he was 16, his mother and father both died of different medical aliments. The money
When I first looked at this data set about political segregation in cities from 538, I rolled my eyes. When you note that Jackson and Birmingham and Memphis are among the most politically segregated c
San Francisco continues to the lead the nation in regressive housing policies justified for spurious reasons. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously rejected a 63-unit apartment